MC Fireside Chats – November 22nd, 2023

[00:00:00] 

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC [00:01:00] Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. I’m whispering on purpose. Because I’m inside an airport lounge in Ottawa, internationally important, so I just want to meet my neighbors around me. So I’m going to count on my special guests here to carry the show.

They do a better job than me anyways, so it really won’t be any different. Just so you know. And also, I have a little head cold, so I don’t know. All the things are working against me today, and in your favor. Because of our special guests, so we’re excited to talk about our RV industry show here for the fourth week.

We’ve got Mr. Shane Devenish from CRDA, we’ve got Phil Ingrassia from RVDA of America, I still can’t get that it’s not America, but And then RVDA of Canada, Eleanor Hamm, super excited to have all of them here, and then Mike Winn, our special guest from RV Lifestyle. If you guys want to just go around real quick and introduce yourselves for everybody, just for those of you who are new or don’t know who you all are,

feel free to, whoever wants to start. 

Eleonore Hamm: Sure, I’ll go first. I’m Eleanore Hamm, President of the RV Dealers Association of Canada. We’re a federation of provincial and regional associations and represent the RV dealers here [00:02:00] in canada. 

Phil Ingrassia: I’m Phil Ingrassi. I’m President of the RV Dealers Association U. S. We represent U. S. motorhome and travel trailer dealers and work very closely with Eleanor and her members at RV Day of Canada. 

Shane Devenish: I’m Shane Devenish from the Canadian RV Association. We are the Canadian equivalent of the RBIA. And Brian, you should be in an RV and not in an airport right now. 

Mike Wendland: He should. 

Brian Searl: I’m waiting on this. Waiting on the CRVA to sponsor one for McCain. When is it going to happen? 

Mike Wendland: He’s going to get busted. He’s sitting there talking like this really quiet. Hi everybody, I’m Mike Wedelin. I am an RVer. I am from RV Lifestyle. We’re bloggers, YouTubers, RV travel book authors, and bon vivants in the RV industry across North America. Pleasure to be with y’all. 

Brian Searl: Alright super excited to have you [00:03:00] all guys here. As I start with every kind of recurring bill here is there anything Shane, Phil, Eleanore, specifically, because you’re a recurring guest, that feels like super important that we need to share with the world, with the industry?

Phil Ingrassia: A couple studies came out within the last couple weeks about RV holiday travel, and I was… A little surprised about some of it. KOA just put out a release today saying that camping is going to be pretty popular during the holiday season. In fact they said something like 45 percent of people are going to be many travelers are going to be camping for Thanksgiving.

That’ll be the top holiday probably, obviously, for people to camp. But Surprised to see the activity, but I guess people are wanting to get outside while they still can on this shoulder season a little bit. Be interested in Mike’s thoughts on those. 

Mike Wendland: It’s, we just did it. Our podcast just came out today and it’s all [00:04:00] about Thanksgiving in an RV. Of course, this is Thanksgiving in the US this weekend. And We posted on our Facebook, RV Lifestyle Facebook group, before I did the podcast, I said how many of you are traveling in an RV this weekend, and we had over 500 responses, and about 20 percent of all of those and we did just a rough calculation, but about 20 percent said they were actually going to cook in their RV or in a campground.

And we interviewed one couple that have been doing this for 10 years with their family. 23 people camping in a campground and cooking turkey, smoked turkey outside in Missouri, near Branson, Missouri. Surprised, we were surprised how many people said they actually wanted to camp this weekend and would be doing so.

Brian Searl: If I want to go find those people next week, I’m going to be in Branson for the Cape Grimmers Expo. They’re going to have some leftovers for me. 

Mike Wendland: Yeah, they should. They start their cookie, their [00:05:00] smoked turkey outside. They said that the campground, by the way, is filled and with other people. Some are obviously staying there and visiting family, but it’s filled. 

She said she had to make reservations five months ago to get three sites together for all their family members. So apparently a lot more than we may think are cooking turkeys in their Thanksgiving turkeys outside or in their RV. 

Eleonore Hamm: Is that unusual? Normally, have you done this study before?

Is this a new trend? 

Mike Wendland: We’ve never done it. I wouldn’t call it a study. It’s just a we have about, but we have a huge group. We have 155, 000 active members on our Facebook. So we can really do quick surveys. And I just posted that the other day before I recorded my podcast. I wonder how many of them have posted, have, are camping.

And they were all. I’ll go on. I was just surprised at how many do camp on Thanksgiving. And I think that was the, I just, because,[00:06:00] we’re always visiting family. We’re in our RV. We’ll maybe moochdocking in somebody’s driveway. But to find so many people still camping was a surprise to me. And this is 12 years now we’ve been living this lifestyle.

I just didn’t think it was that popular. 

Brian Searl: It’s interesting, it would be interesting to me to see if we could understand the difference between the people who camp for Thanksgiving and who are full time, and who like, not only live in their RVs, but primarily live in their RVs, versus the people who transient camp for Insider Perks.

Mike Wendland: I would suspect, and I didn’t, I have no, nothing except just experience to back it up, but the people we did the extended interview with are regular campers. They go out once a month, at least they said, but they’re not full timers. And I would think that You probably have a few more full timers who are celebrating Thanksgiving in an RV than part timers, but I think that it’s [00:07:00] become, for a lot of people, it’s probably a tradition.

You, you go someplace, you visit family, friends, your RV, and that’s a pretty fun thing to do if you can cook outside. I asked them what they do if it rains, and they said they raided the nearest Walmart and bought as many tarps as they could and put their tables together and tarps underneath it, and it was one of their best memories yet when they had that a few years ago, but it’s just, I think, we sometimes forget how integral a part of our community is.

of our followers lives is indeed camping, even in holiday time or whether it’s in a driveway. Moot stocking, I don’t know how we could measure that, but I would guess that there is a significant number of RVers who are camping in relatives or friends driveways. This weekend. And I think that the, it makes a lot of sense is you’ve got your own bed, your own bath.

It’s like a private en suite. All your stuff is [00:08:00] there. It’s so much more convenient than a hotel. To get some actual statistics would be interesting. I suspect we would all be surprised just by what we found in this. 

Brian Searl: How does RV Look forward, and this is not just the Camping in Iteria conversation but many different associations.

How do we look forward? How do we embrace both the people that obviously are continuing to love RVing, but also camping, and glamping, and everything else? And that people who will diversify their stays and go to hip camp sometimes, and people who will go to Europe but still go camping three times a year instead of six times a year, right?

It’s a lot of loaded questions as we look at all these KOA surveys that come up in the winter. Is that adding more trips? Are they new people who are and so I think whichever way you slice and dice the data, it’s going to be an interesting next couple of years.

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, in terms of studies, we’ll be releasing probably by the time you do your next podcast here or your next show I don’t know if there’ll be [00:09:00] one in December, but at least in January, we do have a new draft right now that we’re reviewing for an economic impact analysis for the Canadian RV industry.

Some really interesting data that’ll come out of that. We do know that there’s still about 2. 1 million RVs on the road. And last year in 2022, 6. 3 million RV trips were taken in Canada. And this time, for the first time, we also looked at rentals. So 1. 3 million trips taken in in rentals.

And we feel that number is really increasing as well. So good to have data and good to see where, where where we can compare to where we were, over the last 10 years. 

Brian Searl: And I think that’s to be clear, you guys can shoot me down because I’m not the RV industry expert, right?

But I have a gut feeling that rentals is really a big growth in the RV industry is going to come in the next five to 10 years. Of course, people are still going to buy these, right? But we had this conversation at many different conferences that I’ve been in last month, is there’s a lot of these new people that the age demographic is trending down, they live in urban areas, they don’t have a place to store an RV, [00:10:00] right?

You can’t park it in your driveway, you can’t put it in an apartment complex. You still want to go RVing, right? You want to be outdoors. Or maybe you’ll buy one, maybe you rent one. And that still ends up being a net win for the dealers, right? ’cause the rental companies are still buying them more from the crew.

Mike Wendland: I think you’re also seeing a lot more dealers that are renting as well. I’m thinking of The’s. A lot of folks are going out to Quar site, for the big January, what, 300,000 people camping in the desert. And I’m hearing just anecdotally from a lot of people who are. They don’t want to necessarily drive across the country to go out to Corsite, but they want to experience it, so they’re all looking for places in the Arizona area and Las Vegas where they can rent RVs and then drive down.

I think it’s a great business. I’m hearing all the time about new companies that are starting out that specialize in renting. And I think that I think you’re right on, Brian, that that’s a fast growing [00:11:00] area and it’s perfect for the younger generation because… Nobody can afford a house anymore.

How can you afford to buy a house in the, in these economic times we’re in? So people are used to renting. They’re renting their houses, they’re renting their apartments. It makes sense, especially when an RV, you’re paying 9 percent for an RV loan. It makes sense to rent an RV.

Although, nobody’s going to rent them long term, but for a weekend or a couple of weeks, I think you’ll see that’s a very viable industry for people to keep this, people are hooked on it. After COVID, it’s not going back the way it was before. If nothing, people really like this lifestyle.

Shane Devenish: Yeah, and I I agree that, the rental stat is something that we really need to watch I, I’d be curious to see if the stat per person and their rental frequency goes up, because if you have somebody, Rent, renting multiple times, those are the [00:12:00] people that used to buy, right? It’s one thing to rent once or twice and try it out But if you see people renting it five and six times Then that’s something that you know, I think as an industry would watch 

Mike Wendland: I think it’s a great entryway to buy an RV.

We recommend to folks when they say what should I get? And we say, go rent a couple of different types. Start, try a class B, a C, rent a rent a towable if you have to. And I’m wondering if that’s showing up at RV dealerships, if people are coming in and saying, Hey, we’ve been renting for a while and now we want to buy.

And it seems that’s a pretty good pathway to actually buying too. Yeah, certainly there’s a lot of 

Phil Ingrassia: RV dealers. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. For RV dealers, there’s a lot of economic things that they have to consider when they enter the rental market. One is just a basic, do they have the space to do it and the staff?

Because we’ve found over the years that the most [00:13:00] successful RV dealers in the rental space really run it almost as a separate business. Because you need to have dedicated staff to check out and check in people. You need to have the space to store the rental units. Some dealers are a little landlocked and it makes renting a bit difficult for them.

They just don’t have the space. And then, during the pandemic when sales were hot a lot of dealers just got out of it because they could sell the motorhome or the travel trailer versus having it in the rental fleet. However, now that business is cooling off a bit, we are seeing more dealers taking another look at rentals and it’s it’s an interesting business in many places it’s very seasonal, but dealers who run it separately and make it become a profit center on itself typically are the most successful at it.

And now you have the peer to peer rental platforms coming in and They create a whole nother set of challenges, but uh, [00:14:00] it’s certainly it’s a market for the dealers to explore. It’s just it’s just something that it’s not just, it’s not as easy as saying we’ll just run out a bunch of these units.

You really have to have a business plan in place. Otherwise your customer service goes down. People do. Do crash these units and you’ve got to, you’ve got to have a good plan in place, you’ve got to have good insurance coverages and you’ve got to have the people in place to service those customers, because these first timers, they don’t know how to use the unit and not only can they break the unit, but they can have a bad experience if they aren’t checked out correctly on, on the systems and things in place.

But we survey dealers and we think that we’re going to see more dealers get into or back into RV rentals in 2024. 

Brian Searl: Here’s an interesting question, right? Give me like, just take a hypothetical, right? If it’s the worst case [00:15:00] scenario, and maybe this isn’t the worst case, right?

For the purpose of this conversation, worst case scenario happens and RV sales don’t bounce back for a couple of years, right? Is it feasible for a dealership to be very successful by renting, going all in like you’re talking about, Phil, into a market that’s increasing in rentals and also have service still be able to function, not just for the consumer owned RVs, but for the rentals and for the, even the outdoorsies and stuff like that?

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, absolutely. I think that the, some of the successful business plans are, Near attractions, Florida, out west, around Rocky Mountain National Park or Yellowstone or some of those kind of areas in the U. S. Where you’ve got a lot of debts, like Mike was talking about, people fly in and drive, right?

So you fly into Jackson Hole or whatever and you rent a unit there and then drive [00:16:00] into Grand Tetons or Yellowstone. That’s a successful model. That is, we’ve seen, and of course, in the U. S., we have Cruise America and El Monte, there’s a, they cater to a lot of those types of travelers, especially travelers from overseas who want to see the U. S., so a lot of those Cruise America units driving down the road have have international visitors driving them, and so it’s, It’s a good business, but you gotta be, it’s complicated for a lot of different reasons. 

Shane Devenish: It’s not easy. We’ve seen some big guys up here, not make it.

And it all comes down to utilization and curtailments off season to keep their… Sometimes they just run out of cash flow and it’s.

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, obviously 

it’s some of the large fleets, right? We have the same thing, like Phil said, people are flying in from Europe. It’s they want to go to the Banff, Jasper, all in the West.

They’re, [00:17:00] or they fly into Vancouver and they want to do that drive, right? But again it’s generally for only three or four months of the year. Because we can, some units can, are equipped for winter camping, but they’re not all, and it does get quite brisk if you’re in in the Rocky Mountains in in January, right?

 So some of the big fleets, we’ve got Canada Dream and Cruise Canada, Fraser Way some big fleets. But, on dealers, if, if they have the space on their lots, it’s definitely something they should look into and look at to see if it’s something they can incorporate in their business model.

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. Along racetracks and, uh, those kinds of places amusement parks where there’s camping, a lot of, 

Mike Wendland: Musicals, tailgating, a lot of people running for that.

I think it’s a big profit center though for dealers, just because of the scale that you would have to make a profit that would allow you to have dedicated staff. There’s [00:18:00] so much competition now with peer to peer and I see it more as just a side side business that maybe will help a little bit with the bottom line.

But, just think of the size. If you have 10 rental units are you gonna have ’em all rented out in a single weekend? Particularly, as Shane said up in the northern climate, it’s, yeah. It’s too crazy. Isabel, I can just see camping in Banff in the middle of January and everything freezes up and you’ve got to go get that thing.

And it’s, there are a lot of headaches. Phil’s absolutely right.

Phil Ingrassia: But you’ve got to look at, utilization is key, but. If you have 100 percent utilization, and I don’t know, there’s some kind of formula they use because if something happens, somebody doesn’t bring it back on time, or they back it into a tree or something like that, you’ve got to have a replacement unit for these other folks.

And so the utilization becomes a kind of a formula that you’ve got to use so that you [00:19:00] do have some backup units and certainly the big ones cruise America, they know how to do that very well and they do a great job and they keep their units the, they’re the kind of the same, so that people are, get what they expect versus, you have a bunch of different types of units that you run out, it can be hard to replace the, if you’ve got five people going and you, RV can really only come comfortably sleep two.

That’s a problem. Lots of things that people a lot smarter than me have figured out over the years on RV rentals, that’s for sure. 

Brian Searl: I can’t even figure out how to keep this gimbal cambell straight, 

Phil Ingrassia: we, yeah, we we’re noticing, Brian. 

Brian Searl: It’s it’s on a gimbal for a handheld thing, and it just decides to go and collapse every time.

I don’t know. Anyway, it’s probably better. I look more handsome when I’m not looking. But let’s talk to Mike for a second, right? So Mike, tell us what RV [00:20:00] Lifestyle is. 

Mike Wendland: wE were, this is 12 years, journalists by background for many years, the NBC and big city newspapers and television stations, but About a dozen years ago, we thought we were going to retire.

We bought a little RV, a Class B at the time, a used one. And it was, everybody was coming out of the 2008 recession. So it was like, we didn’t know, we just were going to go out and see the country. I was going back to see the places that I had visited as a reporter. That and that was a time to get acquainted with my wife again, reacquainted with her.

She had a background in TV production. We just started blogging. I’m a journalist, I gotta write a story, and some of my friends picked it up, and was right out of the 28, and I got called by a couple of RV manufacturers saying, Hey, we don’t want you in a used one, let’s get you in some new things.

We began to find people wanted to sponsor us for the, that was just the blog at that time, and then we [00:21:00] started doing YouTube, we started a podcast. 5, almost 500 episodes now of our podcast, and it’s turned into a business and we’re usually around the road half to three quarters of the time, and it’s a labor of love for us because we get to tell the stories about what we’re doing and share.

The fun things that we’re having in our life that this lifestyle really does make possible. So we have about a million followers all in all of our platforms together. And sometimes it’s hard to figure out which platform we’re talking about because we just added Amazon Live earlier this year to do some reviews and things.

And we’re doing probably Three or four live feeds every week. But the interest is just amazing on this lifestyle from, and it, so many people who have found this post covid [00:22:00] I’m still hearing people who said we started camping right after Covid and and now they’re. They’re thinking about selling houses and going full time so it’s a, it, the demand is there.

Phil Ingrassia: What kind of reviews are you doing, Mike? Are you doing campground reviews, product reviews? 

Mike Wendland: I keep thinking I should do campground reviews because we really, we think we could probably offer some suggestions to them, but more product than anything else that we’ve been doing. The things, that range from A little fire starter that people can have to a handcrafted hatchet that’s razor sharp, that’s made in the Ukraine, that’s perfect, a perfect gift for somebody to take, in the back of their RV to, we’d go to all the big shows, we review all the new rigs our Sticks and Bricks home is just outside, just over the Michigan border from Indiana, so we’re right…

We’re a half hour drive from Elkhart, so we’re down there all the time. But I know we’re talking a lot about campgrounds as well. And [00:23:00] it’s been amazing for us to watch how smart campground owners have become in all of this. This, we just saw the Halloween boom, and this has now turned into one of the most popular.

Months for camping anywhere is the month of October. And, we were talking a little while ago about how many people probably camp in Thanksgiving. I’d do the same thing if I owned a campground and I was open. That’s the other problem is you want to actually be in a place where people could be outside.

So it’d be, probably South of of Canada, be a little too cold up there, but I’d promote Thanksgiving. Spend Thanksgiving in your RV, bigger sites, bigger fires, keep everything open and insulate the water pipes a little bit. And I think that what I, what we’re seeing is more and more people.

Camping all year round. We get requests all the time about camping in the wintertime. Ten years ago we, my wife and I, went up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [00:24:00] in January. What’s it like camping in the wintertime? So we camp, we’re the only ones in the campground, and we invited a few people to come the next year, and three or four people joined us, and then five, and that became an annual camping event that we’ve done now in January with about 30 people.

It fills up this state park up there. Since then, we have found that we really can camp all year round in the north. I’ll admit, after Tampa comes, I try to stay down south but we do camp in January. And it’s amazing how many other people are, have figured out that the only difference between summer and winter camping is you don’t usually have running water, and you got a lot of, wear a lot more clothes when you go outside.

But it’s very feasible for folks to camp in the winter. Who would think that this would become a prime time thing, if you look at the campgrounds that are open in the winter, most of them are pretty filled up on weekends with winter campers maybe RVers aren’t so busy after all, right?

Brian Searl: [00:25:00] We’re all a little bit, right? Yeah. But let’s back up a minute because I’m interested in how RV lifestyle generally like, how did, I know you said how it basically got started, but how did you take that initial early success and build upon it, diversify into YouTube, from blogs into everything else, right?

For me, take me for example, right? I would have never been where I am today had I not piggybacked off Shane’s success. I just had him on my show. Millions of people tuned in. Everybody got to know me. That’s my story. 

Mike Wendland: Shane, you want to be on the podcast next week? 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, don’t believe Brian. He wants some viewers, Mike.

Mike Wendland: I wish I could claim I thought it all out and planned it all out, but… We did luck out in that the industry was trying to get back on its feet, back in 2012, they were still hurting from the 2008 recession. But we started with a blog and I am a journalist, so it’s very easy for me to do create content.

And then we started YouTube because I wanted to [00:26:00] document and show people what we saw. And then over time, both of those picked up in popularity and that led to the podcast. And I realized that we really had stuff. People were calling us up and I don’t have a sales department and people say, Hey, we want to sponsor this.

And I I don’t take sponsors on unless they’re long term, we don’t do like a monthly sponsor and people, cause I, it’s gotta be a product we agree on, but it’s turned into a pretty good business. I have eight people now working for me. In different areas from, we have a team that has to manage, you can imagine, what social media is right?

So 255, 000 active people on our Facebook group, it requires moderators 24 7 for that. We have some writers and content creators. I hired a manager to help run the business aspects of it. But up until the last three years, it was just very serendipity. But once you reach a certain size [00:27:00] audience, you find that it just grows exponentially.

And I think that’s um, I don’t know whose that is. That’s not mine. Sounds like it’s mine. 

Shane Devenish: Eleanor owes us all a beer. 

Mike Wendland: Okay, I’m looking for a phone. But it just grew. And we’ve, the one thing that we have done is diversify Our audience the blog, which usually gets about 300, 000 views a month.

Google just does, they do these strange changes that in their algorithm and it affects a lot of people. And so then you move on to a different platform to concentrate on, but we found that the videos, we have about 180, 000 YouTube followers and the podcasts. It gets a. A little over a hundred thousand downloads every month and then the blog and then we’ve produced 18 books eBooks that are travel guides to different regions of North America.

So having all of those different platforms one gives you, when one [00:28:00] suddenly changes and drops off, the others will help pick that up and then the others come back and all the time it keeps to grow, it keeps growing. And and that’s the thing that’s been amazing. The danger we face is do we become so big that we can’t travel anymore?

And that’s what’s happened to a couple of, they call us influencers now. And we’ve vowed that’s not going to happen to us. We’ve, we do want to, the whole reason we didn’t do this is because we like the lifestyle. 

Brian Searl: That’s what happened to me. I used to do videos all the time and I just have no time to do it anymore.

But also I didn’t really have a past, like a past doing videos, like it sounds like you do, right? So let me ask you this. Does RV lifestyle always stay RV lifestyle or do you want to go glamping a couple times a year? 

Mike Wendland: Or do I want to do what? 

Brian Searl: You want to go glamping a couple times a year and cover that.

Mike Wendland: Oh, as long as I can do it in an RV or yeah, we can, we think we just went, we have two RVs. That’s the other thing. We try to change RVs every year. So we are familiar with. Many different models.[00:29:00] I have a Class C motorhome made by a Leisure Travel Van up there in in in I wanted to say Winkler, Manitoba, and then we just bought actually we’re on our second one now, fifth wheel.

We have a Montana fifth wheel, which is neat. Talk about glamping. Oh my goodness. It’s a condo on wheels. So we, it’s changed a lot. We, our initial years were spent, we did a lot of boondocking. We really did. And now it’s a mix between boondocking and. Harvest hosts and campgrounds that we find in the fifth wheel, we want to stay longer.

We get to investigate the area a little bit and do more stories about the region. And we ended up two years ago, buying some property in middle Tennessee. And five acres of property and kind of a little small mountaintop. And we’ve put three RV sites in there, which we don’t rent them, but we use them for ourselves and our friends.

And that becomes a little retreat, a private retreat. And we [00:30:00] have found a huge trend of RVers buying their own land. So they always have a place they know they can go and they can stay as long as they want. In this area we’re in, there’s probably now a hundred other. RVers from all over the country who have bought similar sized parcels of land and we’re all in this general area and it’s amazing to see how many people have said, this is an alternative.

Let’s buy our own land and put in, utilities and an RV pad. So there’s so many different aspects to this is what I’m trying to get at here is that it just shows no signs of lighting up and every area is so important. 

That’s the thing. And I think there’s so many different ways to diversify as we were briefly talking about rentals versus sales, right? Those are two paths of probably many, but that’s people are buying smaller trailers versus bigger trailers. Yeah. And so I think that diversification, that openness, that willingness to [00:31:00] adjust. On a perview per state, per area, per location basis is what’s really gonna help this industry continue to thrive in the future.

Maybe. Maybe that’s maybe that means some of you don’t change, but certainly I’m not saying everybody needs to change. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. I think, one of the things that, you know, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years now. Is when I started, it seemed like people were really focused on bigger units.

In fact, we would pursue legislation to make them allow bigger units. But over the last, and I think Mike, since the downturn and the industry’s recovery over the last, 12 years. We’ve seen the manufacturers and the dealers embrace the diversity of use of products. And a lot of the volume has been driven by a smaller more towable travel trailers.

That’s where a lot of the volume is. And and there really is something for everyone. [00:32:00] Whereas, when I started, you’d go to a dealership and everything big was up front. They’d hide the, hide some of the smaller units in the back. Oh yeah, we do have some of those. Now, it’s almost completely flipped.

You see the lot more affordable product up front. Yes, you can buy an RV, you can be, this could be you, type of messaging that, go RVing is done, but also the dealers and the manufacturers to bring more people in. And recognize that, not everybody is going to buy the biggest motor home or the biggest travel trailer they can and just make it more accessible for millions of more North Americans.

Mike Wendland: Our first maybe the first five years that we have been doing this we spent the Van Life movement. We watched that come in. We watched the, the whole. Possibility to boondock once we’ve had lithium batteries and solar [00:33:00] panels and the ability to literally be off the grid for days and sometimes if you have enough, weeks at a time.

Phil Ingrassia: And then, we have now seen a lot of the vanlifers, they’ve gotten older and they’ve moved into into Class Cs. Some smaller, those, the whole small Class A movement in motorhomes has been pretty amazing to watch. we’ve seen more people move into towables and fifth wheels. And there is a progression in that, that, and I don’t know if that was there always Phil and Eleanor, I don’t know whether you guys have always seen that in, from dealers that people would move from one to another, or if that is now.

Kind of the maturing of the RV consumer market as well. But we, I’ve watched them, you can see them almost grow. Okay, it’s about time for you guys to get a towable. And that’s indeed what they do, and you watch and move on and up. No more one RV for the rest of our life, a thing.

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, we’ve seen that. That’s been ongoing for as long as I’ve been here as [00:34:00] well. It’s some of the dealers said first of all, it became bigger, and then it became a little bit smaller. As you go through your journey, you may start off with a smaller travel trailer with your kids and then your kids get a little bigger.

You need a little bit more space. Then, as as it’s just couples, they might go into the fifth wheel and then, and then transition back to a class B. Definitely, I don’t know what the average ownership of an RV is it’s only about three or four years, I think.

So before people move on to another product type.

Brian Searl: Interesting to hear you guys thoughts on something again, I’m just brushing my mind up coming from the Camping Inventory Convention and their keynote speaker was Earl Hunter from Black Folks Camp 2. And he was talking about the virtue, equity, and inclusion and streaming. You guys have heard of him before and he’s attempting to do in the industry, which I think is a good thing, but how do we.

And not even specifically to black folks, right? How do we, as an industry, reach out to those who don’t normally purchase RVs, who don’t normally go camping, and [00:35:00] make sure, and this is like young people who live in urban areas, right? White people who aren’t camping in the numbers that their grandparents did, because they’re diversifying their vacations.

But how do we reach out to those people and explain to them the benefits of the RV lifestyle, so they’re not just becoming lampers?

Mike Wendland: From our standpoint, just show them what it’s like. The like two generations down, I guess it’d be the, everybody was talking about the millennials and I think the millennials have adopted this great. So it’s the generation after them and the exes that I think that they have picked up on this on their own.

There’s this great interest in the environment and the outdoors, and there is no. Better way to truly experience the outdoor than through the RV lifestyle. I think, the go RVing campaigns have been right on pretty much on all of them. [00:36:00] I think if I was a dealer, I would post as many photos as I can on my website and at my locations that show people.

Camping. I noticed General RV has just done a big section. They’ve hired a chef and they’re doing a bunch of videos showing cooking outside, which is another thing that is, you can do anything from Dutch oven at a campfire and people are more sophisticated. The foodie element of RVing is there.

so Show the use of an RV and just how, yeah. Awesome it is, whether it’s a family, how close you become when you camp, whether you’re a solo we guess about 15 percent of all of our audience are solo travelers, are many of them widows, many of them divorced many just single folks who have gone out and are now, being able to work remotely or if they’re [00:37:00] retired they’re traveling.

These aren’t people who are marginal, they’re not sleeping in a Walmart parking lot every night. There are people who have pretty good incomes, but they have adopted the nomadic lifestyle. 15% I think that’s probably pretty true of all of the RVs out there. If you looked at all the statistics, but just go to RV rally and you’ll see how many people, how many solo travelers there are.

That’s a great market. All of the groups, the niche groups that have developed around them, for example, that the solo female, and most of the solo travelers are female, are women. I’m thinking of Sisters on the Fly and two or three other groups like that are huge. 

Let me push, I 

Brian Searl: just want to push for a second and you guys can agree, disagree with me if you want.

And this is not really me, this is just what I heard Earl say and a few other people at the conference who have tried to expand upon this. I think the RV industry has done a great job of doing everything you just said. [00:38:00] So go RV, it’s a great organization, great campaigns and commercials.

There’s tons of Facebook groups and pages like yours and others who do a good job of regularly promoting the camping and RV lifestyle and all those kinds of things. Enjoy the outdoors. But there are a lot of people. A lot of people in this country who never even consider the outdoors, like it never crosses their mind that’s something they can do, or they associate it just with tenting, or, right?

And so I think there in some ways needs to be a concerted effort to educate people that the outdoors is a good experience, generally speaking, which then leads to In our case of our conversation, purchases of RVs, rentals of RVs down the road, there are a lot of people who don’t even consider this, and they’re not going to go to those Facebook groups, they’re not going to turn on, and demographically I know this right, they’re not going to turn on country music television and watch the GoRVing commercial, they’re going to be on the urban, and GoRVing is not [00:39:00] putting ads there as far as I know.

So how do we do that? How do we make that work is what I’m trying to say. 

Mike Wendland: I don’t, I think that there’s a certain, the RV lifestyle is great, it’s not for everybody. And I think that 

Brian Searl: I think it’s for a lot more people than we’re currently. I really believe that. 

Mike Wendland: I don’t think the industry can handle a lot more people right now.

 I think the real reason you’re probably not seeing it is, number one. The elephant in the room is that if you are, if you don’t have cash, you’re going to pay an incredible amount of money to finance something that, you’re probably only going to use for three or four years before you either trade up or say that’s enough for me.

But there are, and it’s always been that way, that there are a lot of people that don’t like outdoors. They don’t go hiking, they don’t go fishing, they don’t take photographs. They like to go to the clubs and they like the urban lifestyle. And I don’t, I think that it is a lifestyle that is [00:40:00] truly not for everybody because we’ve run into a lot of people who’ve gotten into it, have been talked into it.

And, and I think we find that after about seven months. People, there’s a drop off of a certain percentage of people say, that is not, that’s too much work. 

But that’s a drop off of a certain percentage. So if you take, let’s just make up a number, if you take a hundred people out of it, and we’re just going to make up an area, we would like the nightlife, like you said, or clubbing or whatever else.

And they’ve never thought about the outdoors. If you bring a hundred of those into the RV industry and there’s a 60 percent drop off, 70 percent drop off, that’s still 30 new people in the RV industry, it’s a win, right? I think it’s, I agree with you. I don’t think we want, I don’t think you’re ever going to convince everyone to like the RV industry lifestyle.

That’s not my argument. My argument is how do we make sure that everybody might like it as the opportunity to see it as an option and then choose [00:41:00] for themselves because a lot of people see it as an option. 

Phil Ingrassia: In the U. S., I think that it’s been recognized by the outdoor recreation

It’s not just an RV problem or a camping problem, it’s an overall outdoor recreation problem. 

Brian Searl: Yes. 

Phil Ingrassia: And see… In the U. S. there’s a concerted effort to to get more people outside in general. Get them away from screens and get them to enjoy that. But the issue that we found in study after study is if they don’t grow up doing things outside, if they don’t grow up fishing, if they don’t have access to that kind of activity, it’s very difficult once you’ve.

You’ve hit a certain age to get people to want to do that kind of activity. noW, before it was always what’s the ROI on these [00:42:00] youth outreach things? We don’t want to spend money on something that’s going to take 15 years. 15 years… Where are you? If you don’t start now, what, where are you going to be in 15 years?

So through the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable in the U. S., we’ve Thor Industries has been a big funder of this effort Together Outdoors, where we’re trying to provide access to more youth groups, inner city type folks, some scholarships, things like that. But, it is, it’s a very difficult.

issue to, to deal with. And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and we are, but I think there’s got to be more emphasis on outdoor activities for youth. Otherwise we’re going to be, we, the five people 15 years from now could be having this exact same conversation. And I think part of it is, What are the public land agencies doing to encourage urban, [00:43:00] it’s not just an outdoor activities.

And then what is the industry doing, itself? anD so I think it’s a multi pronged approach to To try to to try to get people outside, especially young folks between the ages of 5 and 15, get them an outdoor experience that, that, right away so that they’re, they have a frame of reference for later in life when they be, when they might be making discretionary or outdoor travel purchase decisions.

Brian Searl: And to be fair, like I knew the RV industry, including some of that, which is I’m not saying you’re not right. It’s great. Everything that you’re doing. And I think. Because I don’t know enough about the RV industry to know that, right? I think that’s an educated statement, but I think that’s the fundamentals of that 15 years of building up that.

If you don’t need to go camping, I’m sorry, I almost said I broke, you don’t need to go camping once, you need to go camping repeatedly, and I think it’s almost like your parents need to [00:44:00] be educated to take you camping. 

Mike Wendland: Let me take just a little different approach, and I think that what you’re, what we’re saying is an unprecedented, a continually, a continuing unprecedented RV lifestyle.

By the general population, it is growing. Some days we have a thousand people try and join our Facebook group in one day, a thousand people. However, I think that what is more important than reaching out to urban kids to go out so outside is to make sure that those who are in the lifestyle now have a good experience.

And by that, the deplorable condition of, I would say, the majority of private campgrounds in this country. Now, I know I’m stepping on toes at something that’s called Modern Campground, and I… Oh, so am I. But I’m telling you, it is deplorable. There are campsites that are [00:45:00] rented at 60 bucks a night that are on a slant like that, aging pedestals, and I know there’s a lot of campgrounds that are doing as best they can to renovate, but when people rent a spot, and you know how hard it is to rent a spot, I mean it’s, that’s the number one complaint I get from RVers is that we, we can’t, we don’t know what we’re going to be doing a year from now, we can’t renovate, we can’t reserve a year in advance.

When they finally get one and they have one of these experiences. Or they get in a campground and they find that there’s no security at the campground at night. There’s nobody from the front office who’s doing any patrolling at all to make sure there’s no rowdiness. These kinds of experiences. Echo through the public, they’ll come back.

Hey, we were there. It was horrible. For every good experience, that brings in a new camper, a bad experience is going to probably, if people talk about the bad more than the good, they’re probably going to turn off. 

Brian Searl: Of course they do. That’s human psychology, right? But that’s not [00:46:00] just campgrounds.

Like you’re not wrong. You’re not wrong. thEre are a lot of bad private campgrounds. There are a lot of good private campgrounds. There are a lot of bad public and good public. There are a lot of bad RV manufacturers and good RV manufacturers. And so you’re right. The impression is everything.

Mike Wendland: Yeah so that I think is the key to the future is to give people a good experience. On the dealership level another big frustration and I understand the reasons. I, that’s gotta be one of the toughest jobs in the world to be a dealer an RV dealer today. But when people have a problem and they call up and they say, We can’t fix your RV for two weeks and, I’m 200 miles from home and I need a new water pump, and tough, we can’t get you in.

That hurts. That hurts a whole lot. And, the other big factor that I think has hurt the industry people are still coming into the industry. There’s still more interest than there is. People turn it away, but the other factor is the general quality [00:47:00] of the RVs that were built in the COVID years in the, in 2020 and 2021, they’re much better now.

And the industry, I think is realizing that, but still quality remains an issue. Dealer service is a big issue and bad campgrounds. If we had, if we could handle those three things, I know. That that would do a whole lot more than holding an urban camp about bringing a five year old kid outside.

And those are important to do, but we’re talking the big things with the industry. It’s those three things, and I’m telling you that as a consumer not as an industry. 

Brian Searl: I don’t disagree, and I want to give Phil and Eleanor and Shana a chance to address the service things, because I know they’ve worked leaps and bounds in how we’re addressing that and things like that.

But I think… I don’t know that I agree with you that all three things are important there. I think it’s equally as important to try to get urban kids outdoors, right? But that’s just my opinion. I’m not saying I’m right. It’s just what I think. 

Mike Wendland: What you’re asking about the industry as a whole, and I’m telling you, the industry doesn’t address these three issues.

[00:48:00] That’s going to have a much more… There’s no better detrimental effect on the industry than getting five year old kids to like the outdoors. And it’s just common sense, Brian. It’s just common sense. 

Brian Searl: Let’s give the industry a chance to defend itself for a second. I don’t disagree with you. But let’s give the industry, like the dealers for service and for pain if you want to comment too.

What do you guys think of this? 

Shane Devenish: I Don’t disagree with Mike at all. I there there’s current problems. There’s issues that we’re all aware of. And then to Phil’s point, you need to… to get the pipeline, create the pipeline for newer buyers down the road. So they’re both issues. One’s today and one’s the future, but they’re both very important for the, the long the long, success for us all.

Mike, I’m curious, have you spent much time up here in Canada? Traveling around? 

Mike Wendland: Not in the last couple, not since COVID. But probably I’ll be up there a lot next [00:49:00] year. We’re doing a, we’re leading a big tour of the Maritimes. And then we’re going to probably spend most of the rest of the summer I’m going west from there, but up until COVID and the shutdowns, I was there all the time because I’m based in Michigan.

 I’ve got the Blue Water Bridge and Sault Ste. Marie and I’m there. And we still think of Canada as God’s country down here, even though we have the upper planets of Michigan, but it’s Canada. 

Shane Devenish: So those campground remarks are south of the border then? 

Mike Wendland: No, it’s true. 

Shane Devenish: I’m kidding.

Mike Wendland: You know that. You know that. 

Shane Devenish: I’m kidding. 

Mike Wendland: Yeah you have the most beautiful provincial parks, though, that I think put some of our national parks to shame, really, in terms of access and beauty. The provincial parks are, in Canada, are just amazing. They rival the national parks that we’re used to in the U. S., 

Eleonore Hamm: thank you. Yeah, from dealerships, we understand that the service side and, it’s been an industry issue that we’ve been trying to get, [00:50:00] more people, it’s a red seal trade in Canada, more RV service technicians, more people in the industry it’s something we dedicate a lot of resources to, to try to talk about the career paths, And people, yes, are using RVs, but they do need to get fixed and to get, it’s, if you asked our dealers, it’s probably one of, one of their challenges is to find enough technicians, right?

And so it’s it’s definitely something we’re aware of and we know as an industry, we need to continue to address and continue to build on so that, consumers do stay in the lifestyle because we attract them, but we need to ensure that, that we do, that they do have a great experience. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, the service issue is really front and center for I know for RVDA in the U.

1. and I know for Canada as well. And it’s a capacity issue and more service bays are needed, but you need to have techs to put in those bays. And then it’s also a supply chain issue. We’ve got to, in our industry, figure [00:51:00] out how to get. Parts to the dealers in time, accurately, so that they can get RVers back on the road.

And, right now the big buzzword in the industry is repair event cycle time. And that’s the time, when you bring in your RV, Mike, and time it takes to get fixed. And before you can take it home and go camping again. We’re well aware of that, I think. There’s probably more effort in that area right now than there ever has been.

And we just invited 1. 5 million new RVers over the last three years, um, into the industry and we owe it to them to do a better job on repair event cycle time and getting people through. But there’s some other issues that we’re having and. tHe care and feeding of new technicians is a big one of those as well.[00:52:00] 

Mike Wendland: I think one of the hardest things it seems to me for a dealer would be, it’s still a very seasonal business for everybody north of that Mason Dixon line and trying to maintain a staff for the peak season and then still have people that will work. I Can’t imagine those challenges. I did notice that some of the industry training groups were doing some pretty cool things.

They were reaching out in some of our prisons and training new techs. We’re seeing a national and in the U S and I would suspect in Canada as well, although I don’t know for sure, an emphasis on vocational training. And boy, right now, being an RV tech, that’s pretty good, that’s a pretty good in demand job.

So I think more publicity to those opportunities, those employment opportunities would sure help.

Brian Searl: All right, guys. We have two minutes left. [00:53:00] Any final thoughts here from our recurring guests or from Mike?

Shane Devenish: Yeah, no, it’s been great to hear Mike’s perspective because he’s, has, so much, um, experience and touches so many people out there. It’s really good to hear your perspective on everything, Mike. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, Mike I’ve seen your material over the years. I just didn’t realize how much it has grown in just a relatively short period of time.

It’s Quite impressive the number of folks you have involved. 

Mike Wendland: Yeah, it’s, as it’s a really fun industry. It’s really just fun to be a part of all this and to be able to, make a living going out and And touring we didn’t talk at all, but the whole idea of remote work is, and I want to, that’s where I’ve seen a great improvement in our campgrounds.

So the ability to let people work from the road by improving their internet access at campgrounds, [00:54:00] uh, that’s sure been a game changer. And to get more people into the industry, one other thing that Brian, I think that would help is to continue to advocate for remote work, because as more people urge their people back into the office, that means they aren’t going to be out there in their RVs.

And beauty is you. You can do just about, most of our service are, in our information age economy, you can do most jobs, many jobs from anywhere, including an RV. So that’s a great thing to keep pushing for. 

Brian Searl: 100 percent agree with you. Yeah. Oh, all thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

Dave, Eleanor, Bill, our regular guests, really appreciate you being here as always. Mike, it was great to hear from you. And you can tell once in a while, I have strong opinions. But that doesn’t mean I’m right? I just like pushing back and hearing different dialogue, and it’s great to hear your perspective, too.

Again, I’m never saying I’m right, I’m just saying that this is where I currently believe now, right? So it’s great to hear from that side, too. 

Mike Wendland: Great to hear from you guys. Thank [00:55:00] you so much. 

Shane Devenish: Happy thanksgiving. 

Brian Searl: Happy thanksgiving. 

Phil Ingrassia: Happy Holidays. 

Mike Wendland: Bye bye, everybody.